The Cascade Vol. 22 No. 3

Vol. 22 Issue 3

www.ufvcascade.ca

January 22, 2014 to January 28, 2014

Great for kindling since 1993

Winter outside the box p. 8

Needle exchange comes closer to Abbotsford p. 4

Facing down vicious animals with UFV students p. 7

2

NEWS News

4

Opinion

5

Culture

9

Arts

11

Sports & Health

15

News

Briefs

CIVL referendum success After asking students for a $4.85 raise to the CIVL fee, UFV’s campus-community radio station will be able to expand their services. The referendum ran from January 15 to 18, with 58 per cent of responders voting yes. With this increased fee, CIVL will be able to expand its broadcast radius to Chilliwack, including the CEP and TTC campuses. As well it will be able to upgrade equipment, expand opportunities for students, and more widely promote events.

UFV under construction Whether you’re on the Abbotsford campus or the Chilliwack campus, the sounds of construction can be heard over the usual din of higher education. The Student Union Society Student Union Building gained walls and a second floor over Winter break — a barren dirt patch no more. As well, the construction of the new UFV Agriculture Centre of Excellence at Canada Education Park in Chilliwack is underway. The new facility will house a demonstration barn and innovative greenhouses allowing students to gain practical hands-on experience in B.C.’s agricultural sector.

A-Lex on Mars Mars One, a Dutch-based non-profit organization, is raising money and narrowing down applicants to send the first human beings to set up life on Mars. UFV grad Alex “A-Lex” Marion has been shortlisted and is enthusiastically embracing the chance to colonize another planet. Mars One is fundraising on Indiegogo.com and Marion has set up a YouTube channel discussing the one-way trip. More details in our next issue.

Have a news tip?

Let us know!

Email news@ufvcascade.ca or tweet at @CascadeNews

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

One hundred years since the Komagata Maru

The centre for Indo-Canadian studies questions what has and has not changed over the years as they prepare to launch their centennial commemoration of the Komagata Maru incident.

Curtailed commentary on current conditions

Don’t want to read a full-length article? Check out the snapshots, where UFV students weigh in on a inexplicable e-cigarette ban, Neil Young’s bid for eco-justice, the death of small talk, and the unlikely romance between grizzly and polar bears.

An unexpected journey

What happens when you decide to head to another province 12 hours before your flight leaves? Anthony Biondi details his trip to Edmonton all the while feeling a little hobbitish.

Lone survivor

You’ll either be weeping “freedom tears” or will feel slightly ill when you watch this true story about the devastating Operation Red Wing. But U.S. patriotism aside, Lone Survivor is a war film to go down with Zero Dark Thirty and Black Hawk Down.

Heat coverage with Tim

Tim Ubels fills you in on all things Abbotsford Heat as they finish their road trip and come back home.

Not just kindling but good readin’ Multi-purpose newsrag heads into referendum DESSA BAYROCK

THE CASCADE

This newspaper has many uses.

We cleaned our offices over the winter break, unearthing a box of old photos. Among them were images of The Cascade made into a joint, a roll of toilet paper, and folded newspaper hats for both people and dogs.

In more recent memory, we’ve given away old issues to be used as kindling. A particularly memorable pile of old issues were sacrificed to a Image: Cascade archives student working on a papier- You, too, could have a Captain Cascade hat. Fashionable! mâché art installation last semester.

Wandering around campus, void. You could be using it for mission to tie the fee to inflaI’ve seen The Cascade used to kindling or papier mâché and tion, so we can still cover our mop up spills, prop open win- never read a single word. Then expenses as the cost of living dows, and act as tablecloths. again, you could be flipping and printing rises every year.

I’ve picked up more than one straight to the Sudoku puzzle In the grand scheme of issue that found a home as every week. Who knows – things, this isn’t a lot. This is something to doodle on. maybe you’re actually inter- my sixth (and final) year at This year we even embraced ested in our SUS coverage.

UFV. My semesterly contributhis trend; our Christmas isNo matter what you use it tion to The Cascade has cost me sue doubled as wrapping pa- for, The Cascade needs your a little under $60, compared to per. Judging by how quickly help. the $17,000 I’ve paid in tuition. the issues in D building were Next week, we’re heading to Overall, I’m not too bummed shucked of their covers, we referendum for a fee increase, about it. I hope you aren’t eihelped cut costs for at least one and there are a couple of rea- ther. budget-conscious student. sons why.

We’ve seen a fee increase But more than any of that, First, the facts: for as long as coming for a long, long time – no matter how entertaining or anyone can remember, The Cas- every year, printing costs get inventive these uses are, we cade student fee has been $4.50 just a little more expensive. hope you read it. per semester. With CIVL’s re- We’ve tightened budgets, but The truth is, we have no idea cent fee increase, that makes as every student knows there’s who reads the paper. It could us the lowest fee on campus. only so much you can tighten be everyone, and it could be With this referendum, we’re a budget. no one. Occasionally we get asking to increase that by $1.50 So we’re asking you for help. emails complimenting The — we’ll still be the lowest fee This isn’t just a fee increase, Cascade’s grammar or criticiz- on campus, at a grand total of but would translate into an ing its coverage, but not often. $6 a semester. increase in both the quality We release our papers into a We’re also asking for per- and quantity of our content. In

Volume 22 · Issue 3 Room C1027 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529 Editor-in-chief dessa@ufvcascade.ca Dessa Bayrock Managing editor michael@ufvcascade.ca Michael Scoular Business manager joe@ufvcascade.ca Joe Johnson Online editor ashley@ufvcascade.ca Ashley Mussbacher Copy editor katie@ufvcascade.ca Katie Stobbart

News editor jess@ufvcascade.ca Jess Wind

Production manager stewart@ufvcascade.ca Stewart Seymour

Opinion editor nadine@ufvcascade.ca Nadine Moedt

Art director anthony@ufvcascade.ca Anthony Biondi

Culture editor christopher@ufvcascade.ca Christopher DeMarcus

Production assistant production@ufvcascade.ca Kaitlyn Gendemann

Arts editor sasha@ufvcascade.ca Sasha Moedt

Photojournalist blake@ufvcascade.ca Blake McGuire

Sports editor nathan@ufvcascade.ca Nathan Hutton News writer katherine@ufvcascade.ca Katherine Gibson

Contributors Taylor Breckles, Martin Castro, Owen Coulter, Valerie Franklin, Jeremy Hannaford, Brittney Hensman, Lauren Southern, and Tim Ubels Cover image: Anthony Biondi

the future we hope to expand into multimedia, offering infographics and video coverage among other original online content. We would be able to hire more students on staff as writers, reporters, editors, ad salespeople, designers — the list goes on. We hope to host guest speakers and events on campus, and in a perfect world we can afford glossy paper for the cover.

At the end of the day, we’re hoping that you, our reader, the average student, will be willing to spare us a buck and a half. We’re your kindling, your makeshift tablecloths, something to sop up a spill in a hurry. But we’re also your student paper. We tell you what SUS is doing and what UFV is up to, and where your other student fees are going.

We train the next generation of journalists, helping students get experience in writing, editing, and creating. We create 20 pages of distraction to help get you through the agonizingly boring time you waste between classes or waiting for the bus. We’re here for you, whatever you need. And yes, this paper does make an excellent hat for your dog if you’re looking for materials.

But no matter what you use it for, I hope that you think this paper is worth an extra $1.50 a semester. Either way, you can let us know next week. Our referendum runs from January 29 to 31 under surveys on myUFV.

Printed By International Web exPress The Cascade is UFV’s autonomous student newspaper. It provides a forum for UFV students to have their journalism published. It also acts as an alternative press for the Fraser Valley. The Cascade is funded with UFV student funds. The Cascade is published every Wednesday with a circulation of 1500 and is distributed at UFV campuses and throughout Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Mission. The Cascade is a member of the Canadian University Press, a national cooperative of 75 university and college newspapers from Victoria to St. John’s. The Cascade follows the CUP ethical policy concerning material of a prejudicial or oppressive nature.

Submissions are preferred in electronic format through e-mail. Please send submissions in “.txt” or “.doc” format only.

Articles and letters to the editor must be typed. The Cascade reserves the right to edit submissions for clarity and length. The Cascade will not print any articles that contain racist, sexist, homophobic or libellous content. The writer’s name and student number must be submitted with each submission. Letters to the editor must be under 250 words if intended for print. Only one letter to the editor per writer in any given edition.

Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of UFV, Cascade staff and collective, or associated members.

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NEWS

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Harm reduction measures to hit Abbotsford KATHERINE GIBSON

THE CASCADE

With an approved third reading removing the ban on local harm reduction services, Abbotsford’s city council moved one step closer toward eliminating the 2005 bylaw that prevented these facilities from running after a public hearing on January 13.

While the reaction of Abbotsford’s community has been mixed toward the removal of the harm reduction ban, Mayor Bruce Banman maintains that the bylaw’s amendment has been well thought-out and will ultimately protect those suffering with addiction, as well as the community.

“This has been in the works for a number of years … Fraser Health Authority and the Hepatitis C council of British Columbia wrote [the city] asking us to revisit this bylaw,” Banman explains. “It mainly has to do with Hepatitis C. Abbotsford has among the highest Hepatitis C rates in the province and the Fraser Health Authority felt that one of the contributing factors was the lack of a needle exchange program.”

While there are benefits to making harm reduction servic-

Image: Melissa Wiese/ flickr

Mayor Bruce Banman discusses the recent amendment to Abbotsford’s harm reduction bylaw. es like needle exchanges available in Abbotsford, many people have expressed concerns regarding the general public’s safety with the implementation of these sites. However, Banman assures there will be many safety precautions put in place, one of which being what he calls a “good neighbour agreement.”

“Fraser Health will find providers to do the needle exchange — it may be a mobile needle exchange; it may be a specific area or areas. And let’s say there becomes a problem

with that or it ends up being a negative impact on a neighbourhood,” Banman says. “To help those who are fearful of that we will put mechanisms in place so that we can work with Fraser Health Authority and the providers.”

While programs like the “good neighbour agreement” will work to maintain community safety, Banman acknowledges there will be a learning curve.

“We can learn from other communities, which we will do, but sometimes you don’t

know what the concerns are until you get there,” he says.

“You have to be mindful as you go through this, which is why we have a joint partnership.”

Banman also hopes that the presence of these local needle exchanges will help link those suffering with addiction to service providers equipped to begin treating them.

“Those that are struggling with drug addiction end up exchanging a needle with a health care provider or a supportive network of some kind, and they start to establish

trust,” he says. “So, when they are ready to come [off] the drugs — when they’ve finally had enough — they are more likely to reach out because they have established that relationship with a service provider.”

And while these facilities will serve as a starting point, Banman asserts that there still needs to be more funding put in place by other resources like Fraser Health, if Abbotsford wants to take better care of those who are suffering with addiction.

“Fraser Health Authority spends approximately $79 per capita, which goes to treat mental illness and addictions.

There’s a strong correlation between mental illness and illicit drug use,” he says. “How are we supposed to deal with this problem when it’s drastically under-funded? If you’re not spending the money … how do you expect to make a dent in this problem?

“The first part of the solution is to stop infecting people,” Banman concludes. “I would say now we need to step up our campaign and help those who are mentally ill and addicted.”

Opportunity to do things in a different way Maureen Wideman steps into the top spot teaching and learning at UFV JESS WIND

THE CASCADE

After four days in her new position and a week in the Fraser Valley, the new UFV director of teaching and learning Maureen Wideman has barely scratched the surface of what she can do in the role.

“It’s a challenging time for sure with all the budget cuts and the restraints,” she says, “but there’s lots of opportunity, too, to do things in a different way ... that’s why I’m here.”

Wideman was brought in from Ontario where she was the manager of disability services at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and the faculty services development consultant for over 10 years.

She also has experience working with faculty and students with disabilities to make technological and online learning more accessible. She steps into the directing role at UFV following Wendy Burton’s retirement in December.

“My job does include both faculty and students ... I kind of look at it like a mechanic shop.

So you know when you have a car and you’ve got a rattle under the hood ... you take your

car to a mechanic,” she says.

“With a lot of teachers they have tremendous expertise, but they have expertise in whatever field they have ... It’s like a service department, you bring in your problem, your rattle under the hood, and we’ll take a look at it.”

The position holds a steep learning curve, especially for someone coming in from another province. However, Wideman is eager to get to know the landscape of UFV and develop some concrete ideas for the direction to take teaching and learning on campus.

“I’m still learning the landscape. I have some ideas, but I’m not exactly sure yet. Some of the best ideas I’ve had on ways to improve teaching and learning have come from students,” she says. “It takes a collaborative approach — you need to get out there and you need to talk to people ... sit down and chit-chat and explore ideas and see where the opportunities are.”

While she has only been in the province a few days, Wideman is already getting used to the West Coast.

“It was -37 C when I left Ontario and now it’s 10 C or 12 C

Maureen Wideman settles into her new position as UFV’s director of teaching and learning. [here]. It’s just magnificent,” she says.

She adds that part of joining Fraser Valley culture and taking on this position is embracing UFV’s loyalty to the surrounding community.

“As a school, we have to be

able to provide what employers are asking for,” she says. “What we want is to be supportive of the community that’s out there.”

Wideman also notes the fine line between demands on students and demands from the

Image: Jess Wind

government for a school to be successful.

“Things are not going to stay the same,” she says. “Things are changing, and they’re changing rapidly. You have to put yourself in a position where you can react to change.”

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NEWS

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Commemorating a century CICS explores the challenges and denials behind the Komagata Maru incident ASHLEY MUSSBACHER

THE CASCADE

“There’s a lot more awareness about what it means to be South Asian. There’s more of a cultural and religious awareness,” said Sharanjit Kaur Sandhra, coordinator at UFV’s centre for Indo-Canadian studies, regarding the upcoming centennial anniversary and commemorative exhibition of the Komagata Maru incident.

Education at a young age, she explained, needs to fight ignorance in our community.

“I’m very excited about our exhibition launch,” Sandhra said. “It’s being launched in our Sikh Heritage Museum ... [it] is housed in the National Historic Temple, which is the oldest standing Sikh Temple in the Americas. We’ve converted the ground floor into a fully functioning museum.”

The Komagata Maru exhibition, titled Challenge and Denial, launches on January 26 and will run for the rest of the

Image: City of Vancouver archives - AM1584-: CVA 7-123/ James Luke Quiney

In 1914, almost 400 immigrants were barred from landing in B.C. year. It is split into two parts.

The first is a timeline detailing the history of South Asians and B.C. between 1897 and 1915.

The second part features artist Jarnail Singh who depicts different scenes of the Komagata Maru incident.

On May 23, 1914, a coal

Brewing program launches at Kwantlen, student brewery no-go at UBC LAURA RODGERS

CUP B.C. BUREAU CHIEF

VANCOUVER (CUP) — At Kwantlen Polytechnic University, students hoping to learn the art of brewing beer can hop to it with a new two-year diploma program.

They’ll get to learn brewing techniques, science and business skills to help them barrel into the beer industry.

While craft brewing has been booming across Canada for some time, there are scarcely any formal programs to teach would-be brewers the ropes. The first such program opened at Niagara College in Ontario in 2005, and in 2013 they partnered with Olds College to offer the program elsewhere in Canada.

Outside of these programs, beer aficionados often learned the trade through home brewing clubs and other informal avenues. Others have gone abroad to the countries like the U.S. or Germany where programs have existed for sometime.

But rather than tending to carboys in their bathtubs, Kwantlen brewing students will get to use a newly-constructed brewing lab at the school’s Langley campus.

They’ll also get work placements at local craft breweries in summer.

There are 35 spaces in the program, which starts in September.

But as this one door for fledgling B.C. brewers opens, another is closing. UBC, some angled at UBC for a studentrun brewery, but their hopes recently came to a halt when a referendum to fund the

project was rejected by UBC’s Alma Mater Society (AMS) — the school’s student union.

The initial plan was to put the brewery in the new AMSrun SUB building, which is currently being constructed.

The plan was for beer from the brewery to be sold at the pub and restaurant inside the SUB, too. But student society finances have been tight in recent years, and the project was repeatedly tabled to a later point.

The new SUB brewery proposal had a deadline, though, as building the facility would’ve required changes to the already-in-motion construction plans for the building. As an alternative, brewery supporters proposed building it at the UBC farm instead. But the AMS refused to give any of their existing funds to the project.

Supporters then floated the idea of getting students to pay a small fee — from $2.50 to $7 over a number of years — to fund the brewery. But many of the program’s strongest proponents have graduated since the first proposal, and the AMS had been questioning whether a student-societyrun brewery would be able to run as a profitable business.

A vote to put the student fee proposal on a school-wide referendum ballot took place last in early-January, and AMS council voted against it.

In the interior of the province Thompson Rivers University is in the exploratory phase of putting together an educational brewery on campus with a local master brewer.

freighter carrying 376 people from India was barred from landing on the B.C. coast. The majority of the group was Sikh, but also included Muslims and Hindus, all of whom were British subjects.

The B.C. government legislated that they had to pay $200

a head to set foot in the province, which was a fortune at that time. After two months of being anchored off the coast, British Navy ships arrived to send them back the way they came. Only 20 of them were allowed to stay in Canada, having proven their Canadian resi-

dence status.

The exhibition will also feature keynote speaker Nsibe Kaur, a descendent of the shore committee that brought the passengers food and water during their two-month stay off-shore and raised $60,000 to pay off the ship’s owners.

“Those men were earning a dollar a day,” Sandhra explained. “To raise $60,000 is just amazing.”

In 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologized for the incident.

“Over the 100 years there’s this recognition that we are citizens, we are Canadians.

At the same time, I do want us to question also what hasn’t changed and what can we do to work on that,” Shandhra said.

This issue was brought into the public eye on December 2, 2013 when it was widley reported that a was caught urinating on the Komagata Maru memorial in Vancouver.

Globalizing campus Internationalization fund supports local events KATHERINE GIBSON

THE CASCADE

Not every student has the money to travel the world and study abroad.

But the international department’s new global citizenship grant is helping to bring a little of that global spirit closer to home. The idea? Every student can take part in actively building an international community here at home on UFV’s campuses.

The grant aims to financially support student-led events on campus that encourage a globally aware student body, working in conjunction with UFV’s mandate of an internationalized campus.

“We’re on our way in programming to lessen the gap or divide between domestic students and international [students],” explains Kara Bertram, UFV’s international contract training and study tours co-ordinator. “Through this grant and other initiatives we’re trying to bring awareness that ‘international’ is for everybody.”

This kind of support was previously available through grants like the internationalization fund, but that financing was available for staff and faculty initiatives only. Now students can work toward a more globally minded campus.

The global citizenship grant gives UFV clubs and associations access to approximately $3000 in funding for campus events.

Due to the grant’s global mandate, one of the main stipulations for accessing this money requires at least two clubs or associations to work together as a team. Bertram is hopeful that this will inspire events on campus that connect students, while building unity among the groups that run on campus.

“We want to have different groups work together and come up with potentially even more engaging and meaningful projects,” Bertram explains. “For instance, we could have the India student club apply for this grant to throw a Diwali celebration, which they

would do anyways … but what if they worked with someone else? What if they worked with, say, history [students]?

They could come up with something even bigger.”

Bertram also notes these events have the potential to link local issues with those happening on a broader scale around the world, adding another layer of international understanding among students.

“The events can be a local issue that has implications or connects to a global issue, or it can be a global issue that affects us locally,” Bertram says.

“It’s important to increase understanding of each other, [between] domestic and international.

“Learning from each other, working together, sharing perspectives and knowledge and experiences, and just the interactions that occur as well,” says Bertram, “will bring awareness of global and local issues to the greater UFV community.”

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OPINION

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

SNAPSHOTS

Grizzly and polar E-cig ban a growing bear hybrids, oh my! trend in nanny states

Curtailed commentary on current conditions

Socially acceptable to be antisocial

Neil Young is a product, too

Taylor Breckles

Lauren Southern

Brittney Hensman

Christopher DeMarcus

With rising tempuratures, polar bears are coming down from icier northern regions and moving into Canadian (and American) soil by means of Alaska and the territories.

This is a problem because the polar bears seem to have a keen interest in our grizzly bears — another big, bulky hunk of dangerous muscle.

So what, you might be thinking. Won’t that just result in some ridiculously awesome hybrid?

A hybrid, yes, but perhaps not very awesome. Instead, the combination of genetics is creating an even more aggressive, and therefore more dangerous, species of bear.

This mismatched animal has the potential to screw up our ecosystem by preying on different species and causing more problems for locals. With a new marauder to worry about, humans and animals alike will be impacted.

The calm, serene forests of Canada have gained a new predator; perhaps even a foe for the hunter of all hunters — us.

The Big Apple, now run by the worms, may soon add e-cigarettes to their smoke-free air act. After a vote of 43-8 from city council and the signature of late mayor Bloomberg, such harmless water-vapour-emitting innovations of the free market have been banned from public and private venues.

The reason, according to city council speaker Christine Quinn is that “many of the e-cigarettes are designed to look like cigarettes and can lead to confusion or confrontation,” as reported by 1010 WINS AM. Yet this ludicrousness seems to be trending among other wannabe-nanny states.

Chicago has also passed a 45-4 vote to prohibit e-cigarettes from public spaces.

Richard Carmona from e-cigarette manufacturer NJOY wrote to the New York council saying the ban was “well-intentioned but scientifically unsupported,” and that it “constituted a giant step backward in the effort to defeat tobacco smoking.”

Weak arguments for the ban expose these governments’ priority of tobacco taxation over saving lives. Hopefully these bans will be revoked with more evidence of ecigarettes easing people out of smoking and benefitting their health.

Remember the days of those early ‘90s TV shows like Saved by the Bell and Boy Meets World? The bell rang and the halls were filled with the hustle and bustle of chatty teens.

What happened to those casual social interactions between classes, from our high school days until now?

Last week, as I walked down the hall of D building, the walls were lined with students, using the wall as some form of balance prop, gazing intently at their iPhones. No one spoke, and only their thumbs moved.

I know people generally avoid small talk like the plague, and the invention of the iPhone has made it incredible easy to do.

However, the fact we retreat to our iPhones instead of making friendly, chatty conversation is sad.

I am just as guilty in using my phone as a socially acceptable way to be antisocial, but if you choose to strike up a conversation with someone before class starts instead of checking your Twitter feed, you’ll most likely improve your “small talk” skills, and — who knows — you may even make a new friend.

I love Neil Young. I don’t like the oil sands.

But the sludge that we’re pumping out of Alberta is much like Young — they’re both products.

After Young finishes his latest fundraising tour, he’s going to donate the profit to First Nations organizations to help battle the oil companies and pay for legal fees.

Who is going to be the winner in this latest eco-show? The lawyers, for one. And of course, Young will still be paid for his performances. So will his crew, his manager, and the catering staff. Only the cash that remains after payday will be donated.

I applaud what Neil Young is trying to do, but the end result of this debate will be bigger consumer SUVs with bigger stereos, playing Young’s songs louder than ever before. Instead of looking to a musician to solve our problems, we should be getting a political economist on the front line.

Rock-star campaigns always end the same: a lot of feel good promises that quickly drain themselves empty, like the gas tank of a tour bus. We need politicians and policy makers to take this issue seriously.

Debunking the eco-Puritan NADINE MOEDT

THE CASCADE

B.C. has a long history of environmentalism. It’s become a way of defining ourselves, a culture of its own.

However, to the detriment of our cause, it has now become a cliché.

When two peaceful environmentalist protesters comically outwitted security and snuck up behind Prime Minister Harper during a conference with the Vancouver Board of Trade, Harper joked that “it wouldn’t be Vancouver without it.” Without the dramatics, without the hysterics, you can almost hear him thinking.

It has become especially easy to write off eco-protesters.

The main criticism comes in the form of an ad hominem attack.

For those of us who have avoided taking Philosophy 100 thus far, instead of attacking the argument the protesters are making, critics needle at their characters.

Illogical, they call them. Irrational. Unreasonable, and most likely unhygienic.

The list continues, as seen in almost every eco-critical “letter to the editor” in The Province and the Vancouver Sun. The most common

accusation environmental protesters receive — more often than not from smug boomer-centrists or Calgary natives — is that environmentalists are hypocrites.

They probably drove to the protest, is the argument. This proves they rely on fossil fuels and they should really be inviting a pipeline through their needlessly pristine coastline. Gas’ll be cheaper, don’t they know?

Consider David Suzuki’s fuel usage as he jets around the world giving talks on climate change, they say. Or Al Gore’s supposedly huge energy consumption.

It’s a biting attack. There’s no consideration given to the environmentalist agenda; it’s a way of side-stepping what environmentalists are really trying to say, an avoidance of action by those who want to comfortably drive their SUVs guilt-free.

The fallacious argument is inevitably made by those who fail to understand. Environmentalists speak to a change in our economy, in the infrastructure in which we are all bound. Sami Grover writes in Treehugger that we live in a world “structurally designed to promote waste, consumption, and fossil fuel dependence.” For example, light

Systemic environmental change demands a little hypocrisy. rail from the lower mainland to Vancouver is put on hold while the highway is expanded and bridges are built to accommodate the everincreasing levels of traffic. It is the hope of the environmentalists to force the change in infrastructure by not feeding into a fossil-fueldependent system; leave the oil in the ground, let the gas prices go up, and begin a transition to green

energy.

George Monbiot writes in the Guardian that hypocrisy is by definition the discrepancy between our “aspirations and [our] actions.” Those of us who consider ourselves environmentalists have high aspirations: we want to live ethically, without detriment to our home. But we will, time and time again, fail to live up to these aspi-

Image: deckhand/ flickr

rations. Monbiot writes that “the alternative to hypocrisy isn’t moral purity (no one manages that), but cynicism.” Someone’s environmental foibles should by no means stop them from voicing their environmental concerns.

After all, wouldn’t most of us rather be a hypocritical environmentalist than a cynic without a soul?

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OPINION

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

MSG: The not-so-deadly killer TAYLOR BRECKLES

THE CASCADE

Chinese food lovers rejoice! Monosodium glutamate (MSG), the infamous ingredient in Asian cuisine, may not be as unhealthy as we initially presumed.

MSG is typically used in order to obtain the savoury taste known as umami. Gathered through a fermentation process, MSG is the secret ingredient that’s not quite a secret, seeing as it has been used in Asian cooking for centuries because of its flavour enhancement.

Yet this umami supplier has been scaring Americans away.

“I can make some stupid fucking hipster dish with Dorito powder and serve it on roasted corn with fucking lime juice and people would eat the shit out of it,” says Chef David Chang on Eater, “If I say, ‘that’s got MSG in it,’ no one’s going to say, ‘well, that sounds delicious.’”

Chang has a point. Americans — and Canadians — eat unhealthy food every day. Look at fast food chains and think about what kinds of chemicals go into that food; think about processed foods, frozen meals, and meat on steroids.

Yet we have no qualms about eating all those products.

Furthermore, glutamic acid

Image: lexnger/ flickr

Embrace the savoury taste of this culinary pariah. (found in MSG) is essential to our survival as humans. We need that compound in order to survive: it’s essential to cell metabolism and is an important neurotransmitter in our brains. Yet it’s viewed as a

non-essential amino acid. Why? Our bodies produce enough of it to survive without the necessity of outside intake. Even so, if our bodies need it in order to survive, it can’t be that bad for us, can it?

If scientists from prestigious universities, microbiologists from Harvard for example, can agree that MSG doesn’t harm the body in any way, why can’t the public agree as well? Maybe it’s because

the average Joe doesn’t know about the natural occurrence of MSG in our bodies. Maybe it’s because they don’t know that we eat natural MSG every day as it is present in many foods. Either way, its negative reputation has stuck.

Maybe they tend to view its captivating taste as an addiction.

There is some explanation as to why humans tend to crave umami.

Glutamic acid has a significant presence in breast milk, therefore as infants we’re exposed to the taste of umami as soon as we escape the womb. As children, we are generally taught to trust mommy and do, eat, act, and say whatever mommy deems “good” — if mommy has been giving us this substance since birth, who’s to say we should stop eating it now?

Several common eateries and even some high-end restaurants have started openly using MSG in their food. As the origins of MSG are explored and the natural occurrence of this substance in our world is revealed, MSG will stop being one of the foods to fear.

Regardless of how long it takes for that fear to subside, MSG will be making its way into the public without disgust or shame once again. In the food world, slow and steady wins the race.

What the West can’t do Quick to stereotype other cultures, but perhaps we should look in the mirror OWEN COULTER

CONTRIBUTOR

When we see a televised bombing in the news, what is our immediate reaction? We know it’s wrong to assume, but the reaction perpetuated by our media is to react with racism: what crazy Muslim did this?

Why can’t a Christian bomb a building? On April 19, 1995 in Oklahoma, two white U.S. citizens, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, did just that.

Western governments claim they intervene in regions around the world to protect human rights.

The Middle East is portrayed to the media as corrupted by a revolution of Islamic extremism, and the West has to save the world again.

However, the West’s interest is not in human rights, but economic gain.

Last semester my sociology professor asked if anyone thought they knew what Islam was. Someone said, “It is a political religious ideology that hates the West.” As a political science student, I was pretty angry about this claim.

How can he think that way? To base people only on what you see on the news?

Islam is not an ideology. The Western nations encourage us to believe that. Christians believe in Christianity, Jewish people believe in Judaism, and Muslims believes in Islam. Why is that so hard to

understand? There are nice Muslims, and there are extremists with other religions.

To understand this topic better, we must give it a broader outlook.

We have our own Christian extremists in Canadian history with the example of residential schools.

In 2001 Michael Ignatieff, in Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry, stated that “Democracy without constitutionalism can turn into an ethnic cleansing — a cultural genocide.” That is what Canada committed in residential schools.

Can Canadian society call residential schools a cultural genocide? It fits the criteria, as Canada overlooked its democratic responsibility as a government and victimized First Nations children to “cleanse” their minds. The Gordon Residential School in Saskatchewan was the last federally run residential school, and closed in 1996.

These kids were getting beaten while I was watching Sesame Street.

Is it okay to do this? Is it okay for the Church to just apologize and the government give a $2 billion compensation package? Is that what Western policy is about?

Throw money at a problem, say sorry, give them a plaque, and say it is all over? Ignatieff explains, “we are stuck with enforcing human rights in the twenty-first century through an international system drafted by the victors of World War II.” Human rights as politics are

The Middle East isn’t “exotic,” Western thinking just calls it that. volatile, because the victors and the people with power dictate human rights as politics. The West can correctly label what happened in Rwanda in 1994 genocide, or what Al-Qaeda does in the Middle East extremist acts, but according to them, what Canada did from 1876 (the enactment of the Indian Act to 1996) is not genocide — they

did not conduct Christian extremism. The country was helping make people better. Canada was a democratic country without constitutionalism until 1996, because the government bypassed constitutionalism and acted as a form of nationalism gone rogue for 100 years. The government wanted to cleanse the country and believed

Image: Adam Reeder/ flickr

in the statement of one people one nation one destiny. Western nations are unable to commit genocide, but nations that do not have a stable power and democracy are able to.

That is what we are doing on an international level to the Muslim people.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

OPINION

Would you rather fight a grizzly bear, a polar bear, or a hybrid?

Feel like sharing your short-andsweet opinion? Keep an eye out for our whiteboard-toting pollsters roaming the halls.

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Getting outside is good for mental health, especially in winter VALERIE FRANKLIN CONTRIBUTOR

Last winter, I went hiking with some friends in the mountains north of Maple Ridge. To be honest, I didn’t want to go. They’re sporty, outdoorsy folk — the kind of people who go cycling in logo-plastered Spandex and not only own real snowshoes, but actually use them — while I think a cold winter day means cozy slippers and a book, not blisters and hypothermia. But somehow they pried me off the sofa and into the truck, and away we went.

I began to feel better about going as soon as we left the city and reached the trailhead. It was a perfect December day, bright and crisp. The trail was dusted with fresh snow, but the brisk pace kept us warm. The cold air was so clear that we could count every individual tree on the mountains from miles away.

After a couple of kilometres, we rounded a corner and found ourselves looking out on the Golden Ears completely cloaked in white, side-lit by the low winter

Photo: Valerie Franklin

The mountains, air, and lakes of Maple Ridge are good for you. sun.

We stopped and sat on a snow-covered log, drinking hot tea from a Thermos and passing around a bag of homemade cookies that someone had brought.

My fingers were freezing and my nose was running, but it kept crossing my mind how glad I was that I hadn’t stayed home doing laundry and watching

Netflix. I would have wasted my day and not even known it.

We weren’t the only ones enjoying a winter hike. A Korean family with two small girls zipped into Hello Kitty snowsuits caught up to us after a few minutes. They had just enough English to ask us to take their photo — we deduced from their gesturing — with the Golden Ears

in the background. How flattering is it that we live a place so extraordinary that people come from the other side of the planet to see it, even in the dead of winter?

But it seems like we take our province’s beauty for granted.

Our long, wet winters keep us inside for six months of the year.

And while everyone knows the physical drawbacks of an indoor lifestyle — vitamin D deficiency and pudginess, to name a couple — we don’t often think about the psychological effects it has on us.

Living with walls around us splits us from the natural world both physically and mentally.

Nature deficit disorder, the development of behavioural problems in people who grow up without being exposed to natural environments and wild places, has been on the radar of psychologists for over a decade.

Just this month, the American Chemical Society published the results of a scientific study that spent several years tracking the mental health of people who relocated from grey urban en-

vironments to areas with more trees and green space. No one’s particularly surprised by their findings: people surrounded by nature became significantly happier and more emotionally stable than those surrounded by concrete. We like green stuff. We need it in our lives.

That’s why we’re so lucky to live here. Even in the heart of Metro Vancouver, we’re never more than half an hour ’s drive away from breathtaking walking trails, mountains, and creeks.

That Korean family knew that they only had so long to visit B.C., and they were taking advantage of every minute of their time here, snow or no snow. It’s a good reminder for us to enjoy what we’ve got.

It’s now January and we have at least a few more weeks of winter before the weather starts to warm up — but I’m turning off Netflix and grabbing a jacket.

There’s an entire world outside waiting to be hiked, skied, photographed, and explored. The hardest part is taking the first step out the door.

Chicken and beer Recipes by ASHLEY MUSSBACHER For chicken lovers, these three easy recipes are inexpensive and perfect for weekend cooking on cold days. Also, one chicken will go a long way. Cook on the weekend and you’ll have meals through the week.

The measurements below are suggestions. To be honest, I don’t measure anything. I cook to taste.

Beer chicken soup At least half the drippings from the recipe to the right (don’t use all of them!)

Chicken carcass (hopefully with chicken still on it) 1 chicken breast cooked (optional for more meat) 1 stick celery 1 carrot 1 parsnip 1 small yam ½ red onion (sliced thinly) 2 bay leaves 2 garlic cloves 1 cup of rice water Put the chicken into a large pot and fill with water until it just covers the chicken. Throw in the bay leaves, drippings, garlic, and whatever spices you prefer (I recommend a dash of parsley). Bring water to a boil and leave to simmer for three hours. During this time you can prep the vegetables.

Once time is up, you’ll need to remove the carcass and pick off the remaining meat. There are two ways to do this: either use a metal strainer, being careful not to lose the broth, or fish around in the pot with a large spoon. Be careful not to burn your fingers. I recommend letting the bones sit to cool before picking off the meat.

While the bones cool, you can put the rest of the ingredients, except the rice, into the pot. Turn to low and put the lid on to let it simmer away. If you have a cooked chicken breast, dice it and put it in with the vegetables.

After you’ve picked the meat off the bones and put everything in the pot, let it simmer on low for another hour. Put the rice in half an hour before serving. You will find that the honey from the drippings will make this soup sweet and delightful!

Essential recipes for students 1 4 1 1

Beer chicken with honey garlic sauce whole fryer chicken garlic cloves, minced cup of liquid honey bottle/can of beer (the type of beer is up to you)

Preheat the oven to 350 F, and place the thawed chicken in a roasting pan. I suggest using one that does not have a rack for dripping, because it’s better if the chicken sits directly in the juices.

Pour the beer into the bottom of the pan. Mix the honey and garlic in a bowl, and spread onto the chicken either with a spoon or brush.

When the oven is ready, put the chicken on the middle rack and cook for 90 minutes uncovered.

Every half hour, take the chicken out and spread more honey. If you like garlic, make sure to get the garlic bits on the chicken. They will caramelize.

When it’s done, save the drippings and the carcass! You will need them for the next two recipes.

Note: cook time may vary for different ovens.

Thai chicken vermicelli 500 grams of dry vermicelli 1 chicken breast 1 tbsp of drippings 1 cup peanut butter dash peanut oil 1 tbsp soya sauce 1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp brown sugar 1 can coconut milk ½ cup crushed peanuts ½ red onion (sliced thinly) broccoli (to taste) bean sprouts (to taste) cilantro (to taste)

Heat a pan to medium and add the drippings, ½ can of coconut milk, peanut butter, brown sugar, lemon juice, and soya sauce. Mix until it’s a smooth consistency, and then add the rest of the ingredients except the vermicelli. Cook for 20 minutes.

Follow the instructions on the vermicelli package, and once noodles are ready place them in the pan with the sauce and vegetables. Mix well, and serve.

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Humour

There and back again: a writer’s tale ANTHONY BIONDI THE CASCADE

In an office there lived a writer.

Not a smelly, sticky, dirty office, filled with litter and coffee stains. This was a writer’s office, and that means comfort.

In this office, there was one particular writer: me, a very meek and soft-spoken writer of some degree. It came to me, as most adventures do, in the form of a request to attend an annual journalism conference in Edmonton.

This invitation came suddenly, as if out of nowhere, less than a day before the trek. In a whirlwind of effort, I packed my things and was off to a city I had never seen before.

We travelled by plane over the misty peaks of the Rocky Mountains — my first flight, in fact.

It was smooth enough — only one of our party was stopped by security. Then up we went over mountain and dale, then over the valley filled with ice and snow. Shortly after, we landed safely in the snowy cold. What we found was beyond our imagination.

We took a train from the airport to the city centre. The first sight we saw when we left the station in high spirits was the last thing we hoped to see. One of our party pointed out to us the great tower of Enbridge, reaching high above the other buildings, its great yellow-andred logo embossed high on the surface of its peak. And not only that, for as another member of our company alerted me, the air reeked of oil.

I was in denial at first. There

was no way that such a great city filled with so many people could support an enterprise that does nothing more than crush environmental matters. My journey had not taken me over the misty mountainous peaks to find a glorious, clean land. No. We had landed in Dol Guldur.

Later in conversation with Edmontonians, we met with devout opposition when it came to our ideas of natural preservation. We warned about the problems involved in transporting oil via pipeline through our glorious natural province, but our ideas were cut down, demolished by hard, dark responses.

“A hippie,” one of us was called. There is no room for such environmental thoughts when economy is on the line.

One afternoon while I was out walking the city’s streets, there was a bus on the side of the road. It had blown out a vital component in its engine and had spilled transmission fluid far along the gutter. The driver of the bus was talking to a woman at the bus stop as I passed, and as if it was destiny, he said to her, “Imagine what an environmentalist would say if he saw this.”

He spoke in a mocking tone, as if he would look the “hippie” in the eyes and

laugh.

The situation appeared to be quite simple. I was behind enemy lines. Enbridge, the great oil tycoon that had taken over and darkened the landscape of Alberta, had also indoctrinated its residents.

The people of Edmonton had become the sort to laugh at environmentalism and worship sheer profit. I thought of the destructive actions of Saruman and the orcs. They had been bought. The oil runs deep in Edmonton and wears a happy smile. The Enbridge lobby window was lined with happy-looking fake plants — made from oil.

Luckily, there was little trouble on our journey and our company returned safely, not coated in bitumen.

The danger had passed, but my reflections are scarred in my mind.

If our neighbours, who control the oil industry in that region, have the mindset that economy, not ecology, is the primary asset of our planet, it is hard to say what may happen in our future.

What future abuses will we have to put up with if the province of Alberta believes they are doing the right thing?

I left our Shire as one man, and came back as not really the same man as I was before. I hope, and fear, for our future in this glorious province.

Alas, the ideals of our neighbouring province could fuel the enemy’s fires and send him on a destructive collision course with our natural land.

Etiquette can get you what you want, when you want it CHRISTOPHER DEMARCUS THE CASCADE

I watch people. I’m like Sherlock without his ADHD medication. I can’t help but pick up on the bad habits of students, then ruthlessly judge them.

I’m not sure if it’s right to judge, but for the sake of etiquette — and my sanity — I have to. There is a basic set of manners we should review before the next time we have to share the same space together.

First rule: others first The umbrella rule of etiquette is forgetting yourself and considering the comfort of others.

A magical thing happens when you put others first: other people enjoy you being part of the group. Being considerate is the key to getting what everybody wants: respect.

A good place to watch etiquette crimes of this nature is the library. You can hear students gabbing into their cellphones, stuffing their faces with pizza pockets, or cranking their beats to 11 with the sweet, sweet sounds of a new Nickelback

mash-up.

Please, follow the rules. Be quiet. Be considerate of others.

Second rule: be firm, not mean Who is to save us from the constantly loud library marauders?

The stern librarian. Not mean, but stern. The librarian is an enforcer, the perfect example of a manners maestro. We should aspire to be librarians, who rule their sacred stacks with a velvet grip. You’re doing a everyone a favour by politely asking the loud ones to shut up, instead of telling them Nickelback sucks.

Third rule: have lively arguments, not meaningless quarrels Most etiquette guides will tell you not to talk about religion or politics. But besides food and the weather, what else is there to talk about? Economics and philosophy, of course! Critical viewpoints should be actively debated at university. This may be the only time and place for you to do so.

An old and tired phrase is to “try and see the other side.” Forget that. You can’t see the other

side. That’s why you called them a “monstrous asshole.”

Instead, review the other side.

Make sure you know the specifics of what they’re saying, and repeat it back to them — nicely, not like a parrot.

Ask questions to try to understand where their idea came from and how it works. Unpack the argument gently. Don’t use dynamite. Socratic questioning should be used for learning, not for poking your classmates in the eyes.

Fourth rule: put Wikipedia back in your pants We’ve all done it. We pull it out under the table and start tapping away. Hoping no one is looking. Just before we get caught it loads onto the screen: Wikipedia’s answer to your anthropology professor ’s probing questions.

Seriously, put it away. If you didn’t do the readings, admit it.

Wikipedia won’t score you any points, but it will let everyone know you’re a narcissist that needs attention. No one wants to hook up with a narcissist.

Fifth rule: you can never be over-dressed University is supposed to be a crazy, out-of-this-world, uniquely dynamic, and bizarre place. But there is another principle that ties us all together: professionalism. At least, a basic sliver of professionalism.

If you want to wear your pyjamas to school, do it right. That other day a young lady was walking through the halls in a Batman onesie complete with bat-mask hood. That’s doing pyjamas right.

The point is, don’t be a lazy slob. Don’t dip yourself in bong water before coming to class.

And for fuck’s sake, can’t getting high wait until 4:20 p.m.?

For students and professors, it’s not often that etiquette and academics are grouped together — most of us assume that we remembered how to flush a toilet and wash our hands from grade three. Please wash your hands — it doesn’t take long to wash off the H1N1. Respect yourself by respecting others. And remember, someone might be watching you.

Upcoming

Events

Jan 8-26 Arouse your interest If you’re looking for some high-minded culture, your answer lies in UFV theatre’s latest production, the Canadian play Age of Arousal. With student rush tickets available for only $10, it’s never been more affordable to see a play.

Jan 26 Komagata Maru Centennial Exhinition To commemorate the tragic events surrounding the Komagata Maru in 1914, the UFV centre for Indo-Canadian studies has curated an exhibition at the Sikh Heritage Museum. The event will feature a reading from Chanting Denied Shores by author Tariq Malik.

Jan 23 - Mar 30 Clash: Conflict and Its Consequences The Reach is featuring a collection of work from national photojournalists with the theme of war and conflict: memorials to the fallen, objects that survived atomic blasts, sites of concentration camps, and the link between the photographer and the subject.

Jan 8-24 It(wa)’s All About Me Chris Janzen returns to UFV this month after graduating with a BFA in 2010. His latest autobiographical visual arts show presents “the painful, positive, and often unsettling transformation from self to husband and father.” You can swing by anytime during school hours to see his work hanging in the gallery on the Abbotsford campus.

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www.ufvcascade.ca

SUDOKU PUZZLE

CROSSWORD El crucigrama

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014

by Taylor Breckles

ACROSS 2.

5.

8.

9.

11.

12.

You need a ____ to use Microsoft Word. (11) You call people using this. (8) A green vegetable often found on burgers. (7) This bug is featured in a famous Spanish song. (9) The Spanish hat. (8) The most famous Mexican food. (4)

Answer keys Last week’s crossword

Sudoku solution

ACROSS

DOWN 1.

3.

4.

6.

7.

10.

This red food is often mistaken as a vegetable. (6) Where people get their groceries. (12) Eddy Van Halen played the _______. (8) Dora is a (female) _____. (11) Rock, pop and blues are types of _______. (6) The dark drink no university student can work without. (4)

2 BORSCHT 4 ALPHABET 6 MISO 8 CHOWDER 9 MUSHROOM 10 BROCCOLICHEDDAR 11 BISQUE

DOWN 1 RAMEN 3 CHICKENNOODLE 6 MINESTRONE 7 PEA

The Weekly Horoscope Aquarius: Jan 20 - Feb 18: Play your cards right and the real Slim Shady might just inspire all your paper topics for the next year.

Pisces: Feb 19 - March 20: Jalapeños go well with everything except gifts you intend to give your mother.

Gemini: May 21 - June 21: You came in like a wrecking ball because you ARE a wrecking ball. You should consider dropping that arts degree and going into construction.

Cancer: June 22 - July 22: If you wake up to a farm animal standing over you, it means only one thing: a goat has imprinted on you, and now you are its mother. This is why people never go to Chilliwack.

Star Signs from January Jones* Libra: Sept 23 - Oct 22: The position of planets Saturn and Pluto would usually be encouraging you to explore your boundaries and push yourself to new heights this week, but Pluto isn’t actually a planet so it doesn’t really mean anything.

Scorpio: Oct 23 - Nov 21: The only thing I see in your future is jellyfish … lots and lots of jellyfish.

Aries: March 21 - April 19: Don’t buy a disco ball this year. It’s still not cool.

Leo: July 23 - Aug 22: Rihanna is your spirit animal.

Sagittarius: Nov 22 - Dec 21: Your horoscope will be extremely didactic this week.

Taurus: April 20 - May 20: Jupiter is almost in the sphere of luck for you this semester.

You’ll be able to pass one of your midterms without studying, but good luck figuring out which one.

Virgo: Aug 23 -Sept22: The alignment of Mars and your mother’s dishware makes it increasingly likely that someone will misinterpret a perfectly innocuous request from you as a marriage proposal.

Capricorn: Dec 22 - Jan 19: I know you think Snakes on a Plane is a fictional account of snakes on a plane, but there are snakes on every plane.

Consider the lowly ferry as an alternative transport. *No, not that January Jones

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Film Review

Lone Survivor JEREMY HANNAFORD CONTRIBUTOR

Lone Survivor offers one of the most intense narratives I have experienced in years. Not since Black Hawk Down or Saving Private Ryan has a film been so engrossing with its characters and their war-defined obstacles.

But with that intensity comes a propagated view of “evil” Taliban and more-than-human Navy SEALS. It results in, from one point of view, a respectful retelling, and from another an overblown sense of American valour.

Based on the failed Operation Red Wings in 2005, recounted in the best-selling book of the same name by Marcus Luttrell, Lone Survivor follows four members of SEAL team 10 as they are thrust into fierce combat from which Luttrell — played by Mark Walhberg — was the only survivor. That sense of commitment and sacrifice is shown within the opening moments of the film as clips of Navy SEAL hopefuls trudging through the vigorous training regime. The sense of patriotism is overpowering, and it’ll either dig deep into your heart or your stomach.

Aside from Walhberg, the cast is comprised of Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch, and Taylor Kitsch, who portray their characters with prowess. From intense conversations with Luttrell to undergoing intense training, each actor gives his greatest respect the real-life counterparts they play. The beginning of the operation is detailed with the same attention as other great modern combat films like Black Hawk Down or Zero Dark Thirty. All the while, that ever-repeating theme of patriotism comes off the screen.

Director Peter Berg doesn’t just wish to show how badass the U.S. military is — he also asks the audience an incredibly

difficult question. What causes the entire mission to go awry is when the team is discovered by goat farmers whom they suspect might be Taliban. The film not only shows the team’s deliberation — whether to let them go or to kill them — but also poses it to the audience. What are the lengths you would go to keep your friends alive?

Despite the outcome given in the title, the next 40 minutes go down as difficult and intense.

The pain and agony suffered by these men as they somehow keep fighting can seem overdramatic, but after consulting with Luttrell’s book, it is true to his account. Continuing to fight

for their lives despite having been shot multiple times, jumping down a mountain more than twice, and having fingers blown off is heartbreaking to watch. As they begin to fall, each death is a blow straight to the gut.

However there is a moment where the drama breaks into the absurd. When one of the soldiers falls and lies dying on the mountain, he is disrespectfully looted of his possessions including his wedding ring. This is where the film turns into a ‘80s single-minded action flick where the antagonists are nothing but heartless oppressors. This scene disrespects the final moments of the soldier ’s life and Berg loses

the tone he had going for the film. Had they stayed true to the real events, this film would have been a monumental war film.

The final moments of the main conflict are harrowing and end in blood and tears. Lone Survivor’s climax, while performed admirably, doesn’t exceed the movie’s middle point. But it isn’t meant to. Everything after that conflict acts as the resolution.

We see Marcus’s continuing will to survive despite having just watched his three friends die.

After the screen goes black and the audience is given a minute to breathe, the screen’s subjects are once again showered with American patriotism.

We are given pictures and clips of fallen soldiers while Peter Gabriel’s “Heroes” plays in the background. Berg wants you to cry freedom tears, while framing it as showing respect.

Lone Survivor is meant as a testament to these fallen soldiers who, despite insurmountable odds, stayed united to the very end. Lone Survivor is by far Peter Berg’s best film and certainly helps his reputation after making Battleship. While the amount of American patriotism may deter some film-goers, the loyalty and respect of this film is real and unignorable.

— Reel Wrapps serves pretty much only wraps. You can make it a meal with pop and chips, or get a smoothie, but wraps are the “feature presentation,” as the menu says.

The good thing about a menu focused on one kind of food is that usually the place does it well, and this is true for Reel Wrapps.

Reel Wrapps has diversity within the wrap world. I had a difficult time picking – did I want spicy Thai chicken? Cajun wrap with blackened steak, rice, tomatoes, peas, peppers, and spicy sauce? Or a breakfast wrap with farmer ’s sausage, potatoes, scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese, and salsa? There really is something for everyone.

I ended up going for the Shanghai chicken with grilled chicken, jasmine rice, steamed veggies, peanuts, and hoisin sauce in a whole wheat wrap. I

went for the lunch-sized wrap, which may have been a mistake.

It was a difference between $7.45 and $9.45, but it left me wondering how big the dinner size was.

The wrap was delicious, though. It was stuffed with flavour, and they didn’t skimp on the fillings. I had a hard time taking a bite, and that’s not a bad thing. Not at all. I expected there to be an overload of rice and almost no chicken or veggies, but it was well-proportioned. I literally had to stuff it in my face to get a good bit, and it was satisfying.

I will definitely have to return to try another wrap! I’m going to try the full dinner size, as the lunch didn’t quite hit the spot. The West Coast wrap with shrimp, honey mustard, and lettuce calls my name. Though next time I think I will go for take-out.

I’m more a fan of Benedict Cumberbach than of James Dean.

Dine & Dash

Reel Wrapps SASHA MOEDT THE CASCADE

212-32500 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford Hours: 11 a.m. - 8 p.m., Monday to Saturday Prices: Up to $9.45 for a dinner wrap; $2.25 more for a combo.

I always thought Reel Wrapps was a video rental store when I drove past. Do you remember when those things still existed?

But recently, when looking for wrap and flatbread restaurants in Abbotsford — to satisfy a craving that Subway couldn’t appease — a fellow foodie recommended Reel Wrapps.

The place is called Reel Wrapps for a reason, and I was, in a way, right about the movie thing. Memorabilia and photos of old movie stars — Marylin Monroe, James Dean, and so on — decorate the walls. A couple life-sized figures of movie stars

stand eerily to greet customers.

I’m not going to say which movie stars they are seeing as I spent my time avoiding their creepy eyes. The bathrooms have a sign that says “dressing room” on it. The whole place is basically movie-themed. It’s quite elaborate.

Vintage movie stuff and old

movies aren’t my cup of tea, so I wasn’t a fan of the atmosphere; but the place is clean and neat, and I was comfortable to sit down and enjoy my “Wrapp.”

Reel Wrapps serve burritos; soft flour wraps stuffed with veggies, meat, rice, or noodles and sauces or spice. If you aren’t into wraps, this isn’t the place to be

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Album Review

Danny Brown – Old

One thing I look for when listening to rap is how tightly a rapper manages to adhere to the rhythm of a track while rapping.

I was floored. Brown’s ability to put out verses that fall perfectly in line with the track rhythmi-

cally, without having to hesitate or make changes in pronunciation to accommodate a word, and without straying from an established rhyme scheme, is truly impressive. This is a man who understands that a rap-

per ’s voice isn’t used to produce melodies. It’s used in the same way a drum kit would be; it’s all about rhythm. Old is packed with the type of rhythmic precision that Brown seems to strive for. Tracks like “Kush Coma” highlight Danny Brown’s rhythmic prowess.

One of the most attractive aspects of Old, along with the lyrics and execution, is Brown’s ability to fluctuate between two almost entirely different voices; a whiny, high-pitched nearsqueal that is the most prominent Danny Brown trademark, and a deep, aggressive tone that is almost the complete opposite of Brown’s normal voice. This is especially highlighted in tracks like “Red 2 Go.” Regarding the content of his songs, Danny Brown is about as stereotypical a rapper as you’ll ever meet. This album is riddled with songs about his family’s struggle for money when he was a young child, and songs almost entirely focused on partying and drug use. With a song title like “Smoking and Drinking,” there aren’t many places it can go except “smoking blunt after blunt after blunt after blunt.”

Mogwai Rave Tapes

Bruce Springsteen High Hopes

Warpaint Warpaint

Mogwai has been characteristically minimalist in the past, especially in 2011’s Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will. Rave Tapes takes leave of Mogwai’s previous albums in the sense that it is more electronic than Hardcore, and is less melancholy, ditching that feeling of yearning that characterized Hardcore for a much calmer sound. “Remurdered,” for example, is a song seemingly made for people who like to ride trains at night bobbing their heads in the crowd. At least, that’s the feeling it conveys. The album is very involved instrumentally, as there are next to no vocal parts on any of the songs — Rave Tapes builds a wall of sound within each song, even if it’s a minimalist track, the absence of vocals is rarely obvious. This album also seems a lot heavier, the sounds it boasts have a definitive weighted-down feeling, and everything is very dense. In contrast to Hardcore, Rave Tapes features synthesizers much more prominently, favouring them over traditional guitar, bass, and kit. Usually, I wouldn’t dig that type of blunt transition, but in Mogwai’s case, it works.

The E Street Band has defined some of the most pivotal moments in Bruce Springsteen’s career. Whether it was Roy Bittan’s gloomy piano lines on “Point Blank” or the late Clarence Clemmons’ sax solo acting as the emotional centrepiece to “Jungleland,” “the Boss” often needs a full, functioning group of musicians to make his songs click.

With the recent loss of Clemmons on sax and Danny Federici on accordion and organ, the E Street Band had some vacancies to fill as they prepared to record Springsteen’s 18th studio album High Hopes. Tom Morello, former member of Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave, guests with the E Street band for three quarters of High Hopes’ tracks, but sticks out like a sore thumb on every track.

Morello’s intrusive solos on the recycled “The Ghost of Tom Joad” and “High Hopes” nearly ruin the whole record. Springsteen is at his best on High Hopes when he has the listener all to himself, most notably on the haunting hymn-like “The Wall” or the closing cover of Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream.”

But while “Dream Baby Dream” starts like classic Bruce, with the ghost of Federici accompanying him on accordion, it gets lost in a sea of overproduction and unnecessary orchestration.

MARTIN CASTRO

TIM UBELS

Warpaint, despite how some might describe them as a rock band, don’t do a lot of rocking out. The quartet, blurring the line between improvisation and meticulous composition, favours slowed-down, half-slurred lyrics that aren’t ever locked-down songs, while not purely spontaneous as it was in the case of LA-antecedents like Slowdive. Emily Kokal’s vocals, sometimes low in the mix, hanging out in guitar whine (Theresa Wayman), bass groove (Jenny Lee Lindberg) and drum backbeat (Stella Mozgawa), frequently trail off or refuse to finish rhymes, half-believing in some lyrics and emphatically driving others home. The reveries and refrains that emerge, audible and repeated hypnosis-like, suggest songwriting isn’t where Warpaint wants to spend its time: “I’m not alive...I’m not alive enough...,” “Love is to dance...” Most of the what’s said after the ellipses, out of focus, vague desires, blissed out like the rest of their self-titled (but third) album, hasn’t advanced much from Exquisite Corpse six years ago. But forging forward isn’t really what the band is about.

Warpaint is fine with standstill, harmonizing and swaying around intricate variations, building verbal repetition that crowds something “alive/like cyanide” into a headspace for five minutes.

MICHAEL SCOULAR

MARTIN CASTRO CONTRIBUTOR

Mini Album Reviews

SoundBites

I don’t think anyone really likes Danny Brown’s voice the first time they’re exposed to it. I remember I didn’t when I first heard a track from Brown’s 2013 Old. I was sitting on the swings of a local park with a friend, up to no good as usual. “Hey, check this out,” he said. Seconds later, my ears were filled with the most ridiculous voice I’d ever heard, along with some of the most unusual production I’d come across in a rap song.

I walked away from my first encounter with Danny Brown thinking that if ever there was a voice you’d expect to belong to a stereotypical crack-cocaine addict, this was it.

However, I couldn’t completely dismiss Brown, because like it or not, the man could rap.

Days later I gave in and downloaded Old Brown’s sophomore album. I came across a picture of Danny Brown in the process, and immediately thought that if ever there was a face that you’d expect to see on a stereotypical cocaine addict, this was it.

Danny Brown songs, in terms of what they’re about, can be neatly tucked away in one of three possible categorical drawers: smoking (both cigarettes and marijuana), molly (a concentrated form of MDMA), and fellatio.

If you’re trying to challenge the conventions of rap, or trying to prove to your older relatives that rap is not all sex and drugs and rock-and-roll, Danny Brown is not your man.

But if you’re looking for a rapper that manages to keep an original sound, even in today’s music scene, you’ve come to the right place.

For a 31-year-old, Brown doesn’t look, sound, or act like it. And it comes across in his music. But Old produced one of the most confident rap albums I’ve heard in a long time. Brown keeps nothing back. He has poured his lifestyle and beliefs into this record, and as questionable as those beliefs may be, his efforts have resulted in one of the most thoroughly enjoyable rap albums of the past decade.

The Head and the Heart Let’s Be Still

Two and a half years after the release of their self-titled debut album, The Head and the Heart are back with a remarkably matured collection of 13 songs. Titled Let’s Be Still, the band has mostly forgone the increasingly all too common indie folk single sound and instead display some very real depth. A lot of the strong points of the album come from instrumental arrangements, which vary from stripped-down dusty banjo to anthemic rises. Interestingly, the album is shared between the two male vocalists, Josiah Johnson and Jonathan Russell, with Charity Rose Thielen also showing up on other tracks. Subtle harmonies play throughout. The one obvious track that exists to receive radio play is “Shake.” While it’s a nice song, it doesn’t offer anything that hasn’t be heard before. But the rest of the album really shines. “Summertime” offers some excellent, experimental vocals by Thielen.

And my personal favourite track is “These Days Are Numbered,” a hauntingly echoed acoustic song, sung by Thielen, that’s reminiscent of a painfully empty existence, but one that hasn’t given up hope.

When the beautifully operated harmonica hits, the song really elevates. joe Johnson

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ARTS

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Cascade Arcade

Ryse: Son of Rome JEREMY HANNAFORD CONTRIBUTOR

CHARTS

1

Shuffle

Vampire Weekend LEVY Modern Vampires of the AARON CIVL STATION MANAGER City

2 3 4 5

Hag Face Hag Face Losses Demos Open Letters 1-6

Fiddlin’ Frenzy Biscuit in the Fiddle Case

6 7

Chromeo White Women

Shannon And The Clams Dreams In The Rat House

8 9 10 11 12

The Courtneys The Courtneys Jessy Lanza Pull My Hair Back Ylangylang Fantasmagories

Sebastien Grainger Yours To Discover

Betrayers Let the Good Times Die

13 14 15 16 17

Like A Motorcycle Motorpool Skynet The Wild Post Script Post Script Wil Live At The Ironwood The Strumbellas We Still Move On Dance Floors

18 19

Craig Cardiff

Love Is Louder (Than All This Noise) The Woodshed Orchestra

Buzz

CIVL Station Manager Aaron Levy is stoked for this new semester and the opportunities it brings. Here are some songs about things getting better, starting with CIVL. The Beatles — “It’s Getting Better All the Time” Paul was right when he wrote this upbeat, sickly optimistic little ditty. In fact, it’s so juvenile and rosy coloured, it really seems like it should have been a Ringo song … to me at least. Perhaps life for UFV students in the valley will echo its jovial sentiment.

The Flaming Lips — “Turn It On” This is really the only Lips album I’m a huge fan of. Embryonic was much more modern and experimental, more of a post-rock version of this low-fi pop punk trip, but this song is as catchy as any realizations the Flamers have had since getting really big in the aughts.

Bruce Springsteen Trooper”

—

“State

“Radio relay towers gonna lead me to my baby.” This line speaks volumes of the climate for UFV students, driving back and forth across the Lougheed, the number one, or the Fraser Highway, and finally we may be connecting them with their babies on the east side of Sumas! Stay tuned!

Refused — “Liberation Frequency” They wanted the airwaves back.

They didn’t just want airtime, they want all of the time, all of the time.

And now we have more opportunities to give it to you, and to see that we help you make the best use of it here at CIVL. Thanks, UFV students.

Elvis Costello — “Radio, Radio” A song so blunt, there’s not too much to say about it at all. When Ian Curtis of Joy Division asked us to dance, dance, dance, dance, dance on the radio, that was similarly repetitive, but not quite as concise. Declan McManus does it here in much more efficient means.

Ryse was originally announced

by Crytek back in 2010 as a new hack-and-slash game set in ancient Rome. Then at E3 2011, a pre-rendered trailer was released showcasing it as a Kinect-only game for the Xbox 360. It looked like a promising title for those who wanted something other than kid games for the add-on.

Then the game disappeared for almost two years, until an actual gameplay demo was shown at E3 2013 (now an Xbox One title) to major disappointment. With the Kinect feature almost entirely removed, Ryse had become just a hack-and-slash game with an a lot of quicktime events. It was released to lukewarm reviews and has since been forgotten.

When I finally got my hands on the game, it triggered many old memories and oddly enough, I liked it. The story follows a young soldier, Marius Titus, as he rises through the ranks of the Roman army and begins to uncover the truth about his family’s murder. While it definitely takes a page from Gladiator, it offers some straight-up jerks to hunt down and exact your vengeance on.

Hack-and-slash games are part entertainment, part guilty pleasure. There is a large fan base for the genre, especially for the high-octane epics like Devil May Cry, God of War, Bayonetta, and so forth. But those games offer a level of over-the-top action that Ryse does not. It goes for a more realistic and visceral perspective with cringe-worthy executions and slow, tactical combat. But for fans of this style, it is immensely satisfying.

When I played the game at PAX Prime last year, I found I could simply spam the executions and never get hit by enemies. In multiplayer, that’s been fixed: you cannot execute everyone you come across. You have to play smart and choose moves carefully. For some, this is what makes the hack-and-slash genre bland.

Hack-and-slash games that rely more on cinematic style rather than evolving intricacies can quickly lose their flair. When comparing games like Lords of the Rings: War in the North to Bayonetta, the difference is undeniable. When gameplay aspects don’t expand beyond simply smashing the same buttons over and over again, it’s easy to lose interest. There has to be an advancement of interaction that will keep the players interested.

Throw in new combos or new equipment that boosts the character ’s attributes, at least. Despite being movie-based titles, EA’s Lord of the Rings: Two Towers and Return of the King games managed this where a standalone game did not.

That’s what Ryse is, essential-

ly. It is a case of style over substance. Its amazing graphics and intense executions try to hide the game’s lack of interactive progress. You do get to upgrade Marius’s executions or damage protection, but this doesn’t add any combos or new equipment.

There is a multiplayer feature that offers character upgrades by completing rounds in scenarios pitted in the Coliseum. This aspect is very similar to Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer. But the promoted feature of buying packs with actual money looms above the game. It’s certainly discouraging trying to get through a game when micro-transactions are advertised all over the screen.

Ryse is a decent hack-and-slash game. Its beautiful graphics are immersive and captivating and the combat can be fun. But it is also entirely understandable why this game received the reviews that it did. It has little replayability for most gamers and doesn’t offer anything truly new to the Xbox One besides amazing graphics. What the game would have been like as a Kinect-only game is a mystery.

Book Review

Joyland by Stephen King MARTIN CASTRO CONTRIBUTOR

Even if you’ve never read any of his books, you know who Stephen King is. People usually associate King with blood-curdling horror stories that would frighten the elderly into early graves if they ever read one. This is partly true: Stephen King does write horror stories, but he also writes your normal, not-quiterun-of-the-mill mystery and fiction stories. Joyland is a mystery set in an amusement park. This is a good choice for readers who want to experience King’s writing, if only to see what all the fuss is about, without getting the colour scared out of their hair. As seen in previous novels such as The Green Mile and The Colorado Kid, King can go beyond horror and is just as adept at depicting genuine emotional distress based on everyday life situations.

Devin Jones, a college student, goes off in search for a summer job to take his mind off his broken heart. Seems simple enough, right? This story starts out as a simple introspective sabbatical, and turns into one of the more creative mysteries I’ve ever read.

As always, King has a gift for

writing realistic, engaging dialogue, and this piece is no exception. King really makes the best of his ability to move a story along with dialogue. As in any other King story, however, the first third of the story is mostly set-up — background information. As a veteran King reader, I was able to navigate through this less-than-suspenseful part of the book and get to the much-awaited climax. But this is something I’ve heard from those who are unfamiliar with Stephen King over and over: “He just doesn’t cut to the chase fast enough.”

While that may be a legitimate comment, I feel it works in the story’s best interest to delay the climax in favour of character building and setting up enough suspense to make the arc of the story worthwhile.

Although there is a supernatural element to this story, as there most always is with King, it’s not the most important part of it, I find. Sure, in regards to the events of the story, it is. But, in terms of the feeling one is left with after reading, it’s human interaction that really carries the flame in this book.

King has a knack for showing us how easy it is to bring out either the best or the worst in a person, and perhaps more importantly, almost glorifies flaws in protagonists. It brings home the fact that people are not perfect — they’re complicated, and that’s what makes this story interesting and engrossing.

It’s also what makes King such an effective writer, the fact that he doesn’t shy away from human imperfections, instead embracing them as one would an old friend, and letting the reader judge whether or not those flaws make a character worth caring about. In this case, I would say they do.

14

SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

15

SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Heat Report

Heat salvage road trip after splitting weekend series with Griffins week as a result of his mid-December injury. After a tough offensive start to the season, Ferland suited up for 25 games this season, picking up 18 points for the Heat in the last 14 games.

The 6’2 forward uses both his size and skill to create offensive chances and was really beginning to gel with his teammates since November. The Heat are 6-7 since he last dressed.

TIM UBELS

CONTRIBUTOR

The Abbotsford Heat finished their six-game road trip on a positive note, defeating the Grand Rapids Griffins 3-2 in Michigan. The Heat managed to go .500 over that span, despite being outscored 20-11. The victory featured a three-point performance from Max Reinhart, who continued his solid play with a goal and two assists on Saturday night. Bouncing back from their Friday night shutout loss at the hands of the Griffins, the Heat showed great poise, gaining the 3-2 lead and holding it through the entire third period.

Carter Bancks opened the scoring with a short-handed marker at 10:46 of the first period, going five-hole on Griffins goaltender Tom McCollum. The Griffins quickly countered as Nathan Paetsch knotted things up at a goal apiece 43 seconds later, only to have Reinhart give the Heat the lead again heading into the second frame. A disallowed Heat goal kept them from adding an insurance marker, as referee Trevor Hanson deemed that a Heat player made illegal contact with McCollum. The teams traded goals in the second period, as Xavier Ouellet for the Griffins and Markus Granlund for the Heat each added a goal in the second, with Granlund’s being the eventual game-winning tally. Heat goalie Joni Ortio

Image: Abbotsford Heat

The Heat were able to solve Tom McCollum three times last Saturday. turned aside 31 of 33 shots, as he refused to crack under the pressure from the Griffins offense in the third period, preserving the 3-2 lead. Ortio now has 17 wins on the season, and the Heat improve to 27-14-1-1.

Family business With brothers Griffin and Sam performing in the spotlight this past month, as they donned their team Canada jerseys at the World Junior Hockey Championship, Max Reinhart of the Abbotsford Heat has quietly established himself as one of the Heat’s most consistent young forwards in this 2013-14 season.

His notable sophomore campaign includes 30 points in 35 games and a midseason call-up to the Flames when Curtis Glencross went down with an injury, bringing his total to 15 career games with the big-league team.

Look for Reinhart to get another shot with the Flames before the season is out, as his progression on the ice as well as results on the scoreboard bode well for his chances.

Michael Ferland out for the season Abbotsford Heat rookie Michael Ferland will undergo season-ending knee surgery next

Begin retires Before getting the chance to ever play for the Heat, journeyman forward Steve Begin decided to call it a career after 15 seasons at the professional level. He tweeted to his followers on January 16 that he “won’t have the chance to be back playing this year. This news sadly puts an end to my hockey career.” Begin, 35, signed with the Flames last season and played 36 games post-lockout, picking up four goals and four assists.

A nagging hip injury, which he suffered during training camp this season, kept the heart-andsoul grinder out of action.

Comets streak into town The Canucks-affiliated Utica Comets are back in town to face off against the road-weary Heat for a Friday and Saturday doubleheader at the AESC this weekend. The puck drops at 7 p.m., and fans can either tune in on CIVL 101.7 FM or at civl.ca.

SCORES Basketball MEN’S Jan 17 UFV vs TRU W 74-65 Jan 18 UFV vs TRU W 76-69

WOMEN’S Jan 17 UFV vs TRU W 75-41 Jan 18 UFV vs TRU W 75-67

Volleyball MEN’S Jan 17 UFV vs COTR L 0-3 Jan 18 UFV vs COTR L 0-3 WOMEN’S Jan 17 UFV vs COTR W 3-0 Jan 18 UFV vs COTR W 3-0

UPCOMING GAMES Basketball Jan 24 vs UBCO Women’s 6 p.m.

Men’s 8 p.m.

Jan 25 vs UBCO Women’s 5 p.m.

Men’s 7 p.m.

Volleyball Jan 24-25 Douglas College Women’s 6 p.m.

Men’s 8 p.m.

Why sports matter NATHAN HUTTON THE CASCADE

Today’s society can be divided into two groups of people: those who watch sports and those who couldn’t care less. Growing up, I have seen some incredible moments, both negative and positive, that came from athletic achievements and athletic stages.

The Vancouver riots on June 15, 2011 are a prime example of how sports can negatively impact a society. The city became distraught after more than twoand-a-half months of emotional investment and hanging on everything the team did. It was almost inevitable that the city would boil over, no matter the end result of the game.

On the other hand, during a Boston Red Sox game after the now infamous Boston Marathon bombings, Red Sox captain David Ortiz gave a now-famous speech, uttering the words, “this is our fucking city,” to raucous applause. The event was so much more important than anyone could have known at the time; the city was divided,

Image: Elopde/Wikimedia Commons

The 2011 Stanley Cup riots are a perfect example of how sports can be used as a negative outlet. and then united against a common enemy. The city fell in line as they realized the enemy was outside, and the city was not

going to tear itself up but instead rise above and show true strength in numbers.

Sports bring people together

when times are tough. Some may think that being so invested in sports is a source of negativity, but I truly believe

sports bring out the best in people. They show what people are like, because there is nothing to hide behind. Sports players completely bare themsevles every time they step onto the field, court, or ice.

No matter the end result of the game, the way people are so easily affected by sports can be treated negatively by those who don’t understand the point.

Sports exist as a means for members of a community to gather and watch or play in a respectful and competitive environment. It is people who let their emotions get the better of them that present a negative association with sports, but overall sports are far more beneficial than they are detrimental to communities around the world.

Although sports can be a medium for everything that is wrong with society, from those that don’t get why they are such a big deal (the attack on Richard Sherman of the Seattle Seahawks from this weekend), sports and athletic stages bring people together and unite broken communities in so many ways.

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SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2014

Looking for chemistry and consistency on the road NATHAN HUTTON

with one reversal (the guards dominate, taking four straight three-point games) and one additional drill (the coach-player challenge proposed the day before).

The terms of the race are final: 50 metres with a four-metre head start for coach Friesen. The team gathers around the TRU track, shouting over each other about who will end up victorious. Manny Dulay claims that if he had money he would bet on Friesen.

Friesen comes off the line fast, but Hudson is quick on his tail.

Neither treats it like a mere contest, giving it their all, but as the pair approaches the finish line, Friesen narrowly pulls out the win, the head start proving to be the difference. Hudson immediately offers up the possibility Friesen received too big of a head start.

The second night’s team dinner plays host to a series of conversations about high school and college hoops as the TV screens above play the final minutes of the University of Kansas’ Canadian star Andrew Wiggins’ big win over Oklahoma State. But before long, the focus necessarily shifts back to the athletes in the room.

THE CASCADE

I sit in the front, awkwardly trying to find my way around a team that spends more time with each other than with their families.

We pull into our hotel in Kamloops, and the team begins to revive themselves from bus-slumber, shuddering in below-zero temperatures. This is northern B.C., in January. Coach Adam Friesen leaves the bus first and enters the hotel. The rest of the team trails behind, collecting their gear.

As the team enters the hotel and crowds around Friesen, eagerly awaiting the rooming assignments, I also nervously await finding out which of these men I will have to spend the next two nights with. As every pairing is announced, players joke with their roommates, poking fun at each other until only a few players remain. I’m told that I will room with “Big Nate.”

“Big Nate” is the 6’9, 260 lbs. centre standing to my left and looks intimidating as all hell.

He’s new to the team and is on his first-ever road trip with the team. As we settle in, “Big Nate” discusses his American roots and how his life led up to him becoming part of the Cascades.

Morning preparation The next day the team wakes up early to prepare for their morning shoot-around prior to their evening game against the TRU WolfPack. The shootaround begins just like any other practice for the team: They take their warm-up shots and the players talk to Friesen, formulating a gameplan to counter an offense that averages 40 per cent from three-point land: second best in the country.

I spend the morning working out with starting centre Jasper Moedt and his back-up Hudson Simon, the only first-year on the team. Moedt, returning to UFV this season, his third, has become the go-to player for Friesen’s squad. Moedt averages just under eight rebounds a game, good for 10th on the national leaderboard.

The morning shoot ends the same way every time: posts and guards go head-to-head in a three-point contest for bragging rights. The guards boast threepoint threats Klaus Figueredo, Kevon Parchment, and Manny Dulay, while the posts counter with Kadeem Willis and Amrit Gill, not to be underestimated.

The teams trade buckets, neck in neck in their friendly competition, but ultimately the posts get the W in both games. The guards are devastated.

Practice ends, and the team retreats to the locker room to change out of their gear, but not before rookie Hudson Simon claims he can beat coach Friesen in a 100-metre sprint. The terms of the race, about to become one of the most anticipated moments of the weekend, are de-

www.ufvcascade.ca

Kevon Parchment has been a vital part of the Cascades’ success all year. bated, with Friesen arguing he deserves a head start.

Team dinner Each road trip, everyone partakes in a pregame team dinner, where the players get a chance to bond. The dinner gets animated as soon as the NBA comes up. Parchment defends his Oklahoma City Thunder against coach Friesen’s San Antonio Spurs. As soon as guard Aaron McGowan’s hometown Toronto Raptors are brought up, he’s met with mockery. Friesen helpfully brings up the number of winning seasons the Raptors have been blessed with.

Then the team is forced to quickly transition from talkative and carefree dinner ambience to the more serious mood needed for gametime. The bus loads quickly and quietly: most of the players are lost in a world

of music and thought, going through their pregame routines.

The bus pulls into the TRU campus, and the players shuffle off, with some players going directly to the locker room and others staying to watch a portion of the Cascades women’s team’s game.

Game time At this point Jeremy Moore comes in. One of the best trainers in the CIS, he needs to tend to all the medical needs of the team, working on a series of stretches to make sure the team is as prepared as possible for a hard 60 minutes. When coach Friesen decides to enter the locker room to make his final pre-game address, he focuses on what his team needs to do rather than the unpredictable performance the WolfPack will be giving.

UFV controls the game from

Image: Tree Frog Imaging

the start. They lead for the whole game, at one point by as much as 20 points, but dropping as low as by three. Moedt once again shines, inspiring the team with a big 10-rebound performance, chipping in a game-high 21 points. The scoreboard says 74-65 but, as is always the case in a doubleheader, the Cascades can’t be satisfied.

“We came here for a sweep, not a split,” Moedt counsels, as the team returns to the locker room, celebrating.

And do it again Consistency is important in sports; every coach asks for it.

And so the next day’s schedule is (mostly) the same. The team knows it needs to prepare for a more prepared WolfPack squad, who have now seen what their opponents are made of.

Practice plays out like before,

Game time round two The doubleheader comes at one of the most crucial points in the season. A victory vaults them two games ahead of TRU, putting them in a great position to make first or second in the division, a guaranteed playoff spot. It isn’t going to be easy: TRU knows what is at stake too.

Friesen’s speech that drives home the urgency of the game, and the Cascades respond well.

In an incredible first quarter they hold TRU to four points to their 24. They end up needing almost every one, as the WolfPack outscore the Cascades for the remainder of the game. While the final score reads 76-69, it doesn’t tell the whole story of the team’s challenges throughout the night.

Power forward Kadeem Willis makes one of the best plays of the game, stealing the ball on a cross-court pass and leaping with a big one-handed slam to punctuate the victory and cap off a great weekend for the Cascades.

As the Cascades gather on the bus to make their way back to warmer weather in Abbotsford, there’s one last sign of the team’s chemistry. Starters Figueredo, Parchment, and Willis serenade the bus with R&B renditions, dubbing themselves the R&B Boys and doing their best to keep the start of the long drive home from being a quiet one.

A look ahead The TRU double victory was the last of three consecutive road trips for the Cascades men’s basketball team. They return home next weekend to play UBCO, who sit at a division worst 3-11.